Methods |
Retrospective review |
Participants |
33 patients from July 1980 to June 1987; 56 admissions for these 33 patients |
Interventions |
19 operations for obstruction took place |
Outcomes |
Symptoms at death: in all 6/19 patients known to have died, all 6 had nausea, vomiting, inability to eat and constipation at death
Postoperative mortality: (within 30 days) 15.8%
Median survival: 102 days |
Notes |
12/19 had bypass, 2/19 colostomy, 5/19 had bypass + colostomy/ gastrostomy
17/33 patients spent 1/3 of their remaining life in hospital |
Risk of bias |
Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
High risk |
Patients allocated to surgery by clinician/patient choice and retrospectively reviewed |
Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
High risk |
Patients allocated to surgery by clinician/patient choice and retrospectively reviewed |
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
High risk |
Patients allocated to surgery by clinician/patient choice and retrospectively reviewed |
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias)
All outcomes |
High risk |
Patients allocated to surgery by clinician/patient choice and retrospectively reviewed |
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias)
All outcomes |
High risk |
Patients allocated to surgery by clinician/patient choice and retrospectively reviewed |
Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Unclear risk |
Results not reported for different surgical procedures |